


Envy

by imissmaeberry



Series: Forgive Me Father [6]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Attempted Murder, Demons, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jealousy, Minor Character(s), Minor Violence, Possessive Behavior, Stalking, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21726184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imissmaeberry/pseuds/imissmaeberry
Summary: sometimes jealousy can be healthy. sometimes it's not
Relationships: Lee Seokmin | DK/Reader
Series: Forgive Me Father [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1201756
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Envy

**Author's Note:**

> i love seokmin SO MUCH it was fun and also heartbreaking to write this

Jealousy has always been seen as a hateful thing. Monstrous, even, anthropomorphized and given eyes of green. Even in the bible it is written that to covet can only bring darkness into the hearts of men. 

Some say that a little jealousy can be healthy. In some cases, perhaps it can be.

In some cases, however, it can’t.

In some cases, it can be lethal. 

Xx

You watch quietly as the rain falls outside your window. It’s that time of year, when the skies are always grey with the threat of wind and rain, and you welcome it - glad to be gone of the harsh summer heat. 

You turn away from the window and back to the man who sits in front of you. You’ve been dating him for a while now, nearly three months, and still he doesn’t seem to understand his failings. He doesn’t understand why you’re so upset. 

He doesn’t understand that the rage he flew into at the sight on you merely standing next to another man and smiling politely is simply unacceptable behavior.

“I just don’t think this is going to work out.” you tell him. “You don’t seem to understand that your behavior isn’t going to be something i’m willing to deal with, so i just don’t see any point in continuing this. It’s been nice otherwise though.”

His mouth drops open, eyebrows drawing together. “You’re breaking up with me?”

“Yes.” you sigh. “Jealousy is such an ugly thing and if you can’t trust me simply  _ standing _ next to a man, and then you’re going to fight with me about it, then i don’t want to move forward. We’re done.”

He stares at you, bites his lip and and lets out a huffy noise of disbelief. “You don’t have to be such a frigid bitch about it. Acting so high and mighty like you’ve never been jealous before.”

You roll your eyes. “Don’t make a scene. I’ll leave, if you want.”

He puts his hands up and scoffs. “No, please, sit, stay,  _ enjoy _ your coffee.” he stands abruptly and his chair almost knocks over as he stands and leaves, nearly slamming the door. You roll your eyes again and take a sip from your drink. 

It’s a few minutes later when someone slides into your now ex-boyfriend’s chair while you’re in the middle of scrolling through your twitter feed, only asking if it’s okay once they’re already seated. 

You look up, startled, and are greeted with the sight of a man whose smile reminds you of sunshine in the spring. Fresh and sweet, his voice lyrical when he asks again. 

“Do you mind if i sit?” 

You shake your head, “no, please. I’m not sure why you’d want to, but go for it.” He gestures to the way the cafe has become packed around you, and your eyes go wide. “Oh. well, then, i guess that makes sense, doesn’t it?” you smile back at him and he laughs.

“I guess it does.” he holds his hand out and you shake as you introduce yourself and he follows suit. 

“My name is seokmin. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.” 

Later, you don’t hesitate at all when seokmin asks for your number. Maybe now you’d finally have some luck with what seems like a good, sweet man.

Maybe.

Xxxxx

Seokmin doesn’t call you for about a week. But that doesn’t keep you from seeing him - you’d exchanged more than numbers, after all, and you’d spent a good chunk of time in the time between scrolling through his instagram trying to avoid liking pictures over three months old. 

You’d noticed something as you’d looked through the pictures. Seokmin either had a  _ lot _ of pretty friends, or he  _ really _ liked dating around. It set a weird feeling in your stomach that you weren’t sure what to make of - after all, he’d only asked for your number, nothing more and nothing less. 

That doesn’t stop the fluttering in your stomach when he does call, though. 

He asks to meet for dinner and you emphatically agree, and you can practically hear him smiling. It does a little something funny to your heart. 

Dinner goes well, and so does the next dinner, and then the movies, and then more dates continuously after that. You feel differently about seokmin than you have for anyone you’ve dated before, and it feels  _ good _ .

Xxx

“So tell me, how was work?” seokmin looks up at you from across your kitchen table, fork poised to take a bite of the food you’ve made for both of you. 

“It was fine, i guess - they announced something about a promotion that i kind of want, but i’m sure they’ll pick someone else. I’m not exactly the department darling.” you shrug and take a bite yourself. It wasn’t like you were bad at your job - in fact, you were definitely above average, probably somewhere near the top of the sales team. You got along well with coworkers and higher-ups alike, but you weren’t exactly...you felt out of place, putting yourself out there for something like that. 

“Hey.” seokmin grabs your hand and fixes you with a stern look. “You deserve that promotion. Why should you leave it for someone else to get?”

“We-well, i just don’t think i’m the right fit for it. I want it, sure, but that doesn’t mean i’d be good at it. I can think of three other people who’d probably do it better than i could.” 

Seokmin squeezes your hand tightly and it hurts, a little bit. The look he’s giving you is bordering on angry and it scares you. 

“That’s all the more reason to take it for yourself.” he gives your hand another quick squeeze before letting go and sitting back in his seat. “If someone else wants it, it should just make you want it more.”

You’re pretty sure you’ve heard of that line of logic before, but coming from seokmin it unsettles you a bit. You shrug your shoulders again. “I dunno. I’ll think about it, i guess.”

Seokmin sighs and shakes his head, but when he leaves for the night he still smiles when he kisses you so you’re sure everything is still fine. 

It’s nearly a month later when seokmin brings up the promotion again. You’re out for a walk, this time, hand in hand and chatting mostly about nothing when he asks about it. 

“So you never told me, you got that promotion, right?” his thumb rubs over the back of your hand when he speaks, and when he looks down at you he’s smiling fondly. 

You swing your hands between you and shake your head. “No, i ended up not going for it. Someone else got it. It’s fine though.” you are a little regretful that you didn’t at least try, but there will always be promotions. Sales is a quick business.

Seokmin stops walking and the smile is gone from his face. “What do you mean, you didn’t go for it? You should have gone for it. I can’t believe you. You deserved to have that more than anyone.”

Seokmin’s words, on paper, would seem kind and supportive, but the tone he’s using is laced with venom and makes you question his sincerity. “It’s fine, seok, there will be other promotions.”

His brow furrows and he drops your hand in favor of shoving them into his jacket pockets. “Yeah, sure, but you should have gotten  _ this  _ one.” he continues walking and you scurry to keep up with his long stride now that your hands aren’t linked.

“Seokmin, it’s fine, really. I’m not upset about it.”

Seokmin looks at you out of the corner of his eyes and then rolls them. “Yeah. i’m sure you’re not even a little upset.”

When you go into work the next day, you realize he’s right. You watch as the man who’d gotten the promotion moves from his cubicle and into a small office along the wall, complete with a huge window overlooking the city, and something acidic boils in your chest. You feel incredibly unsettled, and you can’t stop thinking about how much you want that office. 

That should be  _ your office _ , with  _ your city view _ , with  _ your pay raise _ to be instituted immediately. All of it, you think.  _ All of it should be  _ **_yours_ ** _.  _

It’s this thought that leads you into your boss’ office later in the afternoon. 

“I think you should change your mind about the promotion.” you state, voice clear and tone slightly irritated. 

“And why is that?” your boss asks, boredom clear in his tone. You bristle at this and set your hands on his desk. 

“Because i want it.” 

He sighs and folds his hands on top of his desk, looking up at you. “You didn’t put yourself in the running. That’s on you. Are we done?”

“No we aren’t  _ done _ .” you snip. “I’m not leaving this office until i get your word that you’ll put hyunwoo back into his old position and give me the promotion.”

“You do have better numbers than hyunwoo. You have more long-term clients than hyunwoo. And you’ve brought us a good deal of long-term, large-budget clients in your time here, certainly more than hyunwoo.” he looks up at you, locking eyes. “But do you know what the main difference is between hyunwoo and yourself? Particularly in this situation?”

“What.” you respond flatly. You don’t care. You care about getting that promotion and nothing else, right now. 

“ _ Hyunwoo _ put in for the promotion, and you did not. I’m not simply going to overlook that because you all of a sudden decide you want the job.”

You roll your eyes. “I always wanted the job.”

“So why is it that you only see fit to tell me so now that i’ve promoted hyunwoo? Jealousy does not become you.”

You scoff. “I’m not jealous! I’m just better suited for the job! You said so yourself.” you cross your arms and take a seat in the chair across from his desk. “I’ll tell you what. You sleep on it, and in the morning when you’ve come to your senses, we can talk again. Sound good,  _ boss _ ?” you lock eyes with him again and set your face with determination. 

“Yeah, sure. I’ll do that.” he waves you off and you roll your eyes as you stand back up and leave. You pass hyunwoo on your way back to your desk, and you’re tempted to tell him not to get too comfortable in the new office. 

You mention this idly to seokmin on the phone that night, and he assures you you made the right choice. 

Morning comes and you’ve begun to doubt yourself. Right up until you see the card laying on your desk, asking you to come into your boss’ office as soon as you got in.

When you greet him, you notice that he looks exhausted and he’s acting twitchy. “Is everything alright?” you ask. His eyes shift around before he looks at you.

“Okay.” he whispers, “you’ve got the job. You can have it. You -” he grits his teeth and closes his eyes, face pinched. “You deserve it more than hyunwoo. I already told him.”

You clap your hands together gleefully and reach out to shake your boss’ hand, but his eyes are still closed so you retract it. 

“Uh, not to pry, but are you alright?” you ask. Not only does he look exhausted, but he’s pale and won’t stop twitching. 

“I just - had trouble sleeping. Nightmares.” he says quietly. “Go, go, move into your coveted office.”

You do just that, and call seokmin from your new office. “I did it, babe. I got the promotion.”

“ _ That’s great! Doesn’t it feel good, knowing you got it over someone else like this? _ ” 

The phrasing strikes you as a little odd, but your elation outweighs your concern for seokmin’s choice of phrase. “It feels incredible! Thank you for pushing me, seokmin.”

“ _ Of course. _ ” he says, voice syruppy. “ _ I’ll take you out tonight to celebrate. _ ”

You agree and hang up the phone, smile taking up nearly your whole face. 

You’re choosing to ignore the fact that your victory feels a little hollow. 

Xxxxx

Things seemingly only get better from there. Your relationship with seokmin grows stronger, and he continues to push you to do things you may not have done otherwise - you ignore the fact that it’s only ever after someone else has already achieved what you’d wanted, because otherwise you’d have to face the fact that seokmin is pushing you to do things you’d be uncomfortable doing otherwise. But you love him, so you turn your head. 

It’s on your nine month anniversary that things begin to go wrong. 

Really,  _ really _ wrong. 

Seokmin takes you out for dinner, a fancy place the two of you have never been together before. Seokmin, apparently, has been here enough times to know several members of the waitstaff by name, and something about this sets off little alarms in the back of your head. 

“You’ve been here before, seokmin?” you ask, trying to force as much nonchalance into your tone as you can. Seokmin either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“Yeah. an ex of mine used to bring me here quite a bit.” he smiles at you and offers to pour you more wine, which you accept. 

“Just the one ex? Which one?” you wish you didn’t care so much about this, especially now. But something about knowing seokmin apparently had some very affluent exes hanging around made you uncomfortable. 

You don’t think seokmin is the type to go after someone because of their status. But nothing sways people quite like money. You work in sales. You know that better than most. 

“Uh, well, two or three exes and i have eaten here before. But only the one brought me here regularly.” he rubs the back of his head, thinking. “Yeah, just the one. Sungmi.” 

“Oh. okay. That’s nice.” you take a roll from the basket on the table and pick it apart slowly in your hands, taking small angry bites while seokmin watches you with eyebrows raised.

“What’s wrong? You seemed so excited to come here.” he smirks and his eyes narrow. “Are you jealous?”

“Of what?” you scoff, ignoring the way your heart hammers in your chest. “Your ex is rich. And probably gorgeous. So the  _ fuck _ what?”

Seokmin’s eyes go wide and he puts his hands up in defeat. “Nothing, nothing at all. Let’s just enjoy dinner, okay?”

Your mood continues to sour throughout the meal and you feel at least a little bad for behaving this way to seokmin. When he drops you off, you apologize. 

“I don’t know what got into me. I’m sorry, seokmin. I ruined our anniversary.” your hands wrap around his neck and he leans down to kiss you. 

“Don’t worry baby. I think it’s cute that you’re jealous.” he smiles, but something about it doesn’t sit right with you. 

“I’m not jealous, seokmin. I have no reason to be.  _ I’m _ the one dating you, not her.” your eyes flick up to his, scanning for quirks in his expression. “ _ Right _ ?”

“Of course you are. A whole nine months now. I haven’t seen sungmi in like, over a year.” he kisses your lips again and then your forehead. “Go on inside and get some sleep, okay? You must be tired.”

You nod and bid him goodnight, assuring him you’ll shower and go right to bed, but you have no plans to do so. You change out of your dress and into pajamas before settling on the couch with your laptop, seokmin’s social media pulled up in a few different tabs.

You find sungmi’s profiles quickly - you also find that seokmin has  _ lied _ to you, considering he’s seen sungmi much more recently than a year, if her feed is anything to go by. They’d had lunch just last week, smiling together over what appeared to be plates of shared food. 

You can feel the bile rising in your stomach as you continue searching, eyes growing tired the more time you spend staring at the screen in front of you. 

You wake up there, on the couch, the next morning. You hurry to work, settling in your office chair but mind wandering back to sungmi. How  _ dare _ she. There’s no way she didn’t know that  _ you _ were dating seokmin - the two of you took more selfies than any couple you knew, and seokmin  _ loves _ to post them. 

And  _ seokmin _ . Seokmin, someone you’d trusted more than anyone in a long time, had looked you in the face and lied to you, and there’s a rage boiling under your skin. If he wanted to leave you, that was - no. it most certainly wasn’t  _ fine _ . Seokmin was  _ your _ boyfriend. The two of them simply needed a reminder.

You open a word document and start planning. 

Xxx

It’s a month later that you put the plan into action. You’ve spent the last four weeks tirelessly going over what information you could gather from sungmi’s profiles, and when that wasn’t enough you began to search for her in the places she posted about so frequently. You were even able to find her address, thanks to a too-trusting old women from the building’s office. All you’d had to say was that you were an old school-friend of sungmi’s, and you wanted to send her something nice for the holidays, and the woman was more than happy to give it to you. 

You found yourself sitting in a cafe across the street from the building, watching people come and go. Watching, and waiting for sungmi. You think about the tools hiding in your backpack and you smile. 

It’s sometime in the afternoon when you finally spot her. She’s dressed elegantly, something you roll your eyes at, and you finally leave the crowded cafe to make your way across the street and into the building. You don’t look at anyone as you walk inside, sunglasses and face mask pulled on to conceal your features. You get into the elevator, press the button, and wait. You’re so close, now. 

You reach  _ her _ floor and slowly make your way towards her door. You knock softly and wait, then knock again. You hear her call out “coming, coming!” and when the door opens you lunge at her, quickly shoving a cloth into her mouth to keep her quiet.

She struggles when you grab her but she’s weak, and you’re able to pin her to her knees easily. You grab the rope from your bag and tie her hands, then her feet, and pull out your knife. 

You leave the sunglasses and the mask on. You want her to know who you are, but you don’t want your face to be revealed. “Now, sungmi. It’s come to my attention we have someone in common.” 

You pace around her tied form in tight circles, playing with the knife in your hands. “You see, this  _ someone _ is very, very special to me. I love him, in fact. And maybe, some time ago, maybe even to this day, you loved him too. My dear, sweet seokmin.” you crouch in front of her and grab her chin, other hand holding the knife less than an inch from her throat. 

“But here’s the thing, sungmi,” you say, tone sickly sweet. “I don’t care if you love seokmin. Or if you ever loved seokmin. Because it doesn’t matter. Do you know why?”

Sungmi is shaking where she kneels, tears trailing mascara down her face. You grab her hair, her  _ gorgeous hair _ , and press the tip of the knife to her chin. “Because he’s  _ mine _ , sungmi.  _ Mine, _ do you hear me? And i want you to stay very, very far away from him. I’m not going to let anyone get in the way of that. Least of all  _ you _ .”

She whimpers something around the cloth in her mouth, but you don’t care enough to find out what she’s trying to tell you. You came here with a plan, after all. 

You stand back up and begin pacing again. “Now, sungmi, i would love to trust that you’ll stay away from him just because i ask you to. After all, i’m the one with all the power here.” you sigh. “But i’m afraid i can’t trust you  _ or _ seokmin if you’re still around. He’s already  _ lied _ to me about you, and i really can’t be having that.”

Sungmi begins to sob and you roll your eyes. “If it helps, i have no intentions of making it hurt. I just need you gone, you understand, don’t you?”

From behind you, you hear clapping. You turn, heartbeat skyrocketing, and see seokmin sitting on sungmi’s couch. 

“What a beautiful display you’ve put on, baby.” he smirks. “But i thought you said you weren’t jealous?”

Your hand clutches the knife tightly. “Why are you  _ here _ ? You weren’t here a second ago. Have you been in  _ her  _ apartment this whole time?”

Seokmin laughs. “Oh, oh baby, no.” he stands and walks over to you, takes your face in his hands. You look up at him, speechless as his eyes flash an inhuman, iridescent green, then stay that way. He looks over your shoulder and smiles, “wasn’t she incredible, sungmi? She’s fallen so far from when i met her.”

You jerk from seokmin’s grasp to turn around, and find yourself face to face with sungmi. Her hair and her makeup are perfect, the rope that had bound her nowhere to be seen. She smirks at you, and you see that her eyes are perfectly, wholly black. 

You find yourself unable to breath. 

“She was great, seokmin. Much better than your last one. Took her a little longer, but she fell  _ so _ much harder.” sungmi grabs your chin and you realize that you couldn’t move if you wanted to. “The knife was a nice touch, considering you were planning to poison me.”

You want to ask how she knew but she’s turning you back to face seokmin, clutching your hair. “Not so high and mighty now, are you, baby? You broke up with that poor boy all because he got too jealous, and yet look at you. You were ready to  _ kill  _ her.” seokmin’s voice is full of glee, smile wide. You can see how many of his teeth end in sharp, jagged points.

You can feel the tears flowing down your face. 

“I - it’s not - i wouldn’t -” you stammer, unable to get words out to defend yourself. 

Seokmin laughs. “Oh, oh baby.” he takes your face into his hands and you feel sungmi’s grip leave your hair. “I’m honored, really. Your first kill, just for me? I’m so flattered.”

You close your eyes and start to sob. You want to wake up from what you’re desperately hoping is a brutal, hellish nightmare. 

“Don’t be sad, baby. I’ll be seeing you again soon enough.”

Your eyes snap open, and you find yourself alone in the apartment - sungmi, too, is gone. 

You sink to the floor and curl into a ball, and cry and cry and cry, horrified for all the things you’ve done. For the things you could have done.

All because you’d felt  _ jealous _ . 

You feel sick to your stomach from all the emotions surging through you. 

You dig through your backpack, searching for the pills you’d planned for sungmi. Hands shaking, you open the bottle and pour pills into your hand. You toss them back, swallow, and wait for things to go dark. 


End file.
